The Pursuit of Strength
by Touda
Summary: Renji desperately needs to become stronger, so when Zabimaru offers him a solution, he becomes torn between his dream and his dignity. Pastfic, possible squick, MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME READERS, please heed the warnings inside.


Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN THEM! I do own some of the background story to do with Renji and Zabimaru, if only because Kubo Tite-sensei hasn't told us enough yet. –shakes fist- When he does, feel free to disregard my lovely blather.

Warnings: Ok, this may disturb some readers. Heed my warnings. Bestiality. That's right, sex with animals. Zabimaru/Renji. One-shot. Adult language, adult situations. Possible spoilers. Squick. Though I don't normally like the idea of it, this was too interesting to not go ahead with. I'm working with courage people. Try it sometime. –laughs-

Notes: This fic has been in the back of my mind ever since I wrote chapter five of Drawn and Inked, my first Bleach story. With a generous amount of help from fellow writer Oboro (also found on it's finally come to light. There's not much mention of exactly how a zanpakutou accepts its master so I assumed the role of storyteller with this one.

With an artful dodge and a grunt of exertion, Abarai Renji avoided a no doubt damaging hit from his opponent, quickly jumping off to his right hand side and attempting to circle around.

He was battered and bruised from more hits than he could remember but he was still in good enough shape to pose a worthy challenge to his opponent, the ape-like avatar eagerly expecting the redhead's dodge and circle as it moved back to a defensive position and held its sword aloft.

"You still lack the integrity to master me completely, Renji. It has been three days."

The pony tailed shinigami snorted and came at the other, working up a holler before slashing out angrily, bringing his weak sword down upon the blade of Zabimaru's, suddenly being forced back harshly as the baboon's tail lashed out at his arms, the snake hissing viciously.

"Oi! You can't attack me twice like that! There's only one of me!"

"Adaptation, Renji. Expect an attack when no attack is forthcoming."

The young Rukongai resident sighed out loud and dropped onto his backside, pulling his knees up halfway to sit more comfortably, his arms behind him as he stretched out, tired of the never ending practice. The sword he fought with remained in the dirt at his side, nicked and scratched, showing his obvious attempts at retaliation.

The pale avatar visibly relaxed and settled down onto its haunches, the snake slithering out to rest upon the baboon's thigh, beady eyes watching Renji with something akin to hatred, secretly excited over the boy's hard work but unwilling to show it.

"Tell me, Zabimaru. How come I know your name but I'm still unable to control you properly? I'm fuckin' tired of all this training bullshit."

The age-old primate smirked noticeably and closed its eyes as it shook its head amicably, amused by the young swordsman's attitude.

"There is more to your training than simple strength, Renji. You only have to accept."

An auburn eye peeked open from its comfortable rest and lilted off towards his zanpakutou's divine form, a curious look if anything, something the creature's tail found exceptionally humourous.

"What're ya staring at, brat? He's got a point. Just listen up."

Renji glared at the baboon's tail and waved a hand noncommittally, irritated from being talked down to by a mere snake.

"Fuck. Fine, I'm listening. Just, make it quick. I've got stuff to do later."

Zabimaru snorted as if in approval of the redhead's acquiescence, giving a quick look around to notice their surroundings, the tall trees and dense bushes blocking any view of the execution grounds, as well as the outer walkway where the stairs led down the side of the high abutment.

Satisfied with the arrangement, the avatar walked on all fours as it approached the wondering but silent shinigami, Renji's appreciation of the creature's intelligence and wisdom obvious on his face as he stared, still resting back on his hands but lowering his knees so that his legs were lying flat. He had considered the sword's manifested form before as something large but not entirely uninteresting, the combination of primate and reptile something of a mystery, the dark lines crossing its body resembling tattoos of an ancient tribe.

The redhead blinked as the animal stepped over his legs and abruptly sat down on his calves, staring deeply at him, dark eyes seemingly boring holes into his skull, its tail slipping from side to side from behind, tickling at Renji's ankles. He was apprehensive now, uncertain as to what exactly he had agreed to. A stifled bark of surprise fell from his lips when the other form snatched the folded sides of his academy yukata and pulled them open, revealing a pale expanse of somewhat flawed skin, subtle marks of battle and training marring the pristine surface, most of them marks given to the boy before he had even thought to enroll in the shinigami school.

To Zabimaru, it was the perfect canvas upon which to work, oddly human-esque hands tracing invisible patterns across the boy's chest, receiving only a gasp and a shiver in return. So, his master had been touched intimately before and wasn't opposed to another male touching him. This realization pleased the manifestation and it smiled, a movement Renji had yet to see, the baboon itself speaking only through mental means, its mouth never moving as it spoke.

Bright eyes followed the creature's movements but Renji was loath to interrupt, the meaning of this encounter ringing clear in his mind. To gain power. To become better than his classmates and be so noticeable that one of the division captains would certainly choose him for their squad. He managed a slow blink before swallowing audibly, not absolute in his decision to go ahead with their encounter but still willing enough to tolerate it wholeheartedly.

"W…what are you going to do, Zabimaru?"

"That much should be obvious, kid." The snake countered with barely concealed malice. "He's gonna mark ya as his own."

Renji looked visibly shocked but nodded anyway, allowing the large form to move over him even more, again leaning over onto its hands, unerringly ambling up the shinigami's long body. Though worried, the pony-tailed student ignored the warnings in his head that told him to run and simply avoid the entire situation; so desperate was his want for the strength to become a proper shinigami.

Secretly, he had been working alone on his studies, training in the woods surrounding Soukyoku and moving quickly towards his mastery of the elusive zanpakutou, regardless of the fact that normal academy students didn't even _have_ them.

The primate-based manifestation grinned broadly as it suddenly disappeared from view, only to reappear behind the pony tailed student, its hands slipping over the boy's shoulders to touch the bare flesh there, the unmistakable hiss from the creature's tail echoing in Renji's mind.

He was beside himself with fright but was unable to move or look away from the strangely human hands that rested upon his body, lowering his head for a split second to peer at each of them before shivering, one of them leaving long enough to tug the tie from the boy's hair, allowing the red tresses to spill onto his back and into his face.

It was somewhat horrific for the future shinigami to notice that he was indeed becoming aroused from the entire process, the heavy breathing of the animal behind him turning him on as easily as the sound of one of his many lovers, something Renji declined to admit further to himself after that brief second of recognition.

Zabimaru chuckled softly; an odd sound considering its voice was already lilted and echoed because of its spiritual properties. Swallowing a groan of shame, Renji shifted himself up to his knees, allowing the other form to move with him, no doubt on its hind legs and just as aroused as he himself was. He refused to look back or look into Zabimaru's eyes, worried that he'd break down and call off the entire endeavor, or crack under the pressure and fall into a miserable depression.

As if on cue, now that its 'mate' was in a more proper position, the baboon entity pushed Renji to all fours and simply sat back to take in the view for a moment, both hands caressing the boy's hips as they pulled the remaining uniform from his body, firm well tanned cheeks peeking out of the dark hakama. The young student preferred to enjoy the sun in the nude when he was alone and because of it, he had no lines and a lovely contrasting colour to the light gray and white yukata he normally wore.

The manifested zanpakutou hadn't truly planned on taking the boy so early in their relationship but because of his willingness to learn and thirst for power, it found that ignoring the desire to fully become one with the future shinigami simply didn't make very much sense. Why not take what it needed in the beginning when the boy was more eager to give it up?

Leaning against Renji's body, Zabimaru lowered its right hand to firmly stroke the burgeoning arousal between its legs, garnering a pleased hiss from its tail, the snake slipping around to watch the proceedings from the best vantage point, happily flicking its tongue along the boy's behind. Suddenly, to Renji's mind anyway, the creature thrust its hips forward and claimed him harshly, forcing its entire length into the tight and unprepared hole that had been so deliciously presented to it.

Renji cried out sharply and fell to his elbows, feeling tears spring to the corners of his eyes as pain erupted within his bowels, aching across his back and up into his belly, a pain he could have certainly gone without but was obviously deemed necessary, considering what had just been placed within his constricted channel.

He kept his head down and bit his lower lip until it bled, noisily slurping up the trickles of blood as if he were worried about leaving any trace of himself behind on the hard unforgiving ground. Behind him, Zabimaru had shifted slightly and now leaned over his body, fully buried within and resting its palms on Renji's shoulders, allowing freedom of movement as it started to slip out and force itself back inside. It would be a slow, languorous fuck and the pony-tailed man knew it.

The creature's tail, however irritated with the situation, was pleased to note that it was now its time to shine, slowly slithering its way to the juncture between the boy's shoulder and neck, giving the area a teasing lick before sinking its fangs in deeply on the right hand side, dragging a harsh grunt and a shuddering moan from the prostrate human. It slowly withdrew the inch long daggers and repeated the motion on the other side, pulling a cry that bordered on pathetic from its new prey.

Zabimaru grimaced as Renji tightened considerably each time he was bitten, forcing the baboon to slow its thrusts to prevent undue pain coming to the student, slowly beginning to take him more violently as the snake curled back to where it had lain before, watching with keen eyes as its larger half took the firm body for all it was worth.

Renji was beside himself with pain, finding the burning of his shoulders drowned out the pain in his rear end but they did little to quell the utter revulsion he felt inside, knowing that if anyone saw him now, they'd surely lose respect for him and deem him a disgusting lowlife. He'd be thrown out of the academy and be barred from anything remotely resembling shinigami training. With a deep sigh, he resigned himself to taking what the creature could give and lifted himself to his hands again, trying to show some dignity through his ungodly fate.

What the redhead didn't realize, was that the bites Zabimaru's tail had given him refused to bleed, simply because they weren't meant to. The marks itched and burned yes, but they were formed of a different spiritual energy than a regular snakebite. From each of the two rapidly closing holes on either side, came dark lines, barely a half an inch in length and as black as the ink with which Renji wrote his reports. The primate entity looked upon them with interest and moved both of its hands to the underside of its now moaning captive and gracefully but viciously, scratched deep furrows into the boy's chest, leaving reddening but non-bleeding lines there, creating a matching but longer set just below that extended down to the very apex of his thighs.

They were purposeful marks and each healed quickly and grew the same half inch scrape of tattoo as those upon Renji's shoulders, of which another half inch would be added daily, until he gained an astonishing collection of tribal body art that would eventually be noticed and envied by his fellow comrades. The animal's tail, feeling left out suddenly, wound itself around each of Renji's biceps in turn, lengthening itself to reach and then bit into the most muscled of spots, creating lines which would grow into more spiraled armbands, instead of the jagged outlines the baboon had in mind

Satisfied with the lines it had started, the avatar moved its hands to the boy's head, where it wrapped long fingers over Renji's forehead and dug its nails into the soft skin above his eyebrows to cause matching marks to appear there as well, then engaging its former desire to take the smaller form without abandon, plunging inside and wringing cry after cry of pain from the Rukongai resident, suddenly stilling its hips before calling out in its own animalistic yowl. It pulled away with a sickening slurp as the redhead's ass released its softening arousal, dribbling the animal's creamy seed down one tanned thigh before Renji sighed out loud and collapsed to the ground, uncaring if he would get dirty, already considering himself as filthy as he could ever possibly become.

The creature stepped back and fell onto its behind, sitting with a satisfied smirk on its face as the snake busily, but in a very business-like way, licked the animal clean, then resumed its blank faced stare at the redhead lying before them, from atop the baboon's thigh. By taking the boy sexually instead of simply marking him, the manifested sword ensured the strength of the spell it had created within the young fighter, making absolutely sure that he would succeed in his deepest desires. Of which, the desire to become an infamous division captain seemed to dominate.

Wanting to see what the manifestation had done to him, Renji painfully sat back onto his own ass with a mighty cringe and surveyed the damage, lightly fingering the now healed marks, wiping at the tiny black lines as if they were smudges that would easily come off.

"W…what did you do to me, Zabimaru?"

The snake entity clucked its tongue and hissed menacingly at the boy, again irritated with his ignorance.

"He's marked ya as his own, brat. I told ya he would."

"I can see that, but what do they mean? Just marks of ownership, or what?"

The great primate shifted itself back onto its haunches and walked on all fours back to the redhead's side, giving him a look that betrayed what had just occurred, a stoic visage that almost frightened Renji more than the act itself had.

"They confirm that you have indeed become one with me, Renji. They will grow with time until the marks become the end design I have chosen for you. Then they will remain on your body until the day comes when I am destroyed."

The young Abarai blinked but nodded anyway, understanding but still in shock about the entire ordeal and what had suddenly been told to him, his fingers still finding all of the marks as they splayed over his chest and belly, lightly touching those on his neck and biceps, only now noticing the tattoos upon Zabimaru's own body, the gentle slopes of black trailing over the muscularly built creature's back.

"They mean I'm more powerful now, don't they, Zabimaru?"

"Correct, and you will only gain more power as they grow. Once they reach the end however, you will not have reached your own end. There is a stage beyond what I have given you now that must be prevailed upon at the proper time. When that time comes, I will appear before you and instruct you further."

"Hai. Understood."

The boy looked up to the sky and softly swore to himself, hefting his sore body to stand and redressing quickly, holding the thin bladed zanpakutou out in front of himself, smiling down at the oddly formed creature and watching silently as it disappeared, returning to the sword and allowing Renji to re-sheath it and start his somewhat long trek back to the academy grounds. He was now late for afternoon kidou practice and according to his most recent test in open class, he needed all the practice he could get. It puzzled him though, what the avatar had meant by 'a stage beyond'. Could it have meant attaining the released Shikai form of the zanpakutou? Or that which all shinigami strived for, the ultimate rearing of one's sword, Bankai?

A year later, Renji sat with Kira Izuru and Hinamori Momo outside of the academy walls, empty obento boxes in their laps and drinks in their hands, all laughing with each other over the latest bout of rumours running through the school. It was only a week until graduation and they had all worked hard enough to gain honours in the school, all three of them now able to graduate and become true shinigami, if only lower class ones, who would take seats within a division and gradually work themselves to something higher over time.

They all wanted to work towards Momo's ideal, to serve under the fifth division's captain, Aizen Sousuke. She idolized the gentle, brown haired taichou and though it was a far off dream, they could all see that light at the end. They had, after all, managed to become shinigami, despite their friends who hadn't joined nagging at them. Renji especially, who, in the dark of his own bedroom at night, thanked Zabimaru out loud as he fingered the steadily growing marks on his body, knowing that if he hadn't been claimed by the ape-like creature, he wouldn't have made it as far as he had.

"Naa, Renji? How come you wear that hachimaki on your forehead?"

The redhead blinked and lifted a hand to touch it lightly, smiling a bit.

"Where else am I supposed to wear it?"

"No, I mean, why do you wear it at all? It's not part of our uniform and it's not hot enough out to be keeping sweat out of your eyes."

The young blond with them paled slightly, constantly agitated by arguments that didn't seem to involve him, his shy nature making him feel as if he were always the third wheel, even amongst his friends.

"Maybe he's wearing it to remind him of someone, Momo-chan. Remember how the ancient samurai wore them to tell people they accepted death? Maybe Renji-kun's just remembering an old friend or something."

The girl nodded and went back to sipping at the cool water she held, sighing softly before sitting back against the large tree the three shinigami had claimed as their own for the lunch hour.

"Aa, you might be right. Gomen ne, Renji-kun."

"Ah, no problem. I just think it's kinda cool is all. It matches my uniform and it keeps the shorter hairs out of my eyes."

In truth, he had been successful in hiding the marks his avatar had put on him the previous year, keeping his head down when he washed before his baths with the other boys after practice and then tying it securely again before they soaked in the large pools, the same when he, Izuru and Momo went to the public ones in town.

Those on the rest of his body remained hidden because he had given up being intimate with anyone after what Zabimaru had done to him, not out of shame but out of secrecy, not wanting to have to explain the marks to anyone. He lifted a hand and scratched idly at the back of his neck, brushing over the oldest of the tattoos and wincing slightly as it gave a swift burning pulse, then went numb again, as if it hadn't happened at all.

The redhead sighed inwardly and tidied up his lunch items, tucking everything into the obento bag and moving to stand, offering his hand to Momo first, then Izuru, pulling the blond up harder than he had to and gaining a laugh out of the placid young Kira, something he enjoyed doing almost as much as he enjoyed becoming stronger.

"Come on, Kira! I've got a kidou with your name on it."

The thin future fukutaichou grinned and shook his head slightly, picking up his own bag from the cool grass and falling into step beside the other two, they already having walked away as the chime rang for the students to return.

"Hai! But you have to make sure you aim it _away_ from yourself this time, Renji-kun. Sensei wasn't too happy with you after that."

"It was _one_ time! And I _was_ aiming away from myself! I was too busy trying to make _you_ look bad that I messed up my own shot!"

The pony-tailed boy huffed indignantly and lifted his right arm to rest atop Momo's shoulder, loving her height because she made the most delightful armrest when he was tired.

Kira chuckled and waved his hand nonchalantly. "Hai, hai. I know. But seriously, you've really improved, Renji-kun. A year ago, you couldn't even hit the mark in class. Now you can best even the brightest. You probably are the brightest of us now."

Renji thought on it for a bit before nodding, trying to forget what had happened a year ago to cause him to become so much better.

"I might be. We'll have to see who gets chosen first for a position within the thirteen Gotei."

The other two nodded as Renji grinned at them, happily planning his conquest of the division he'd become a part of as they re-entered the academy grounds. He was confident in his abilities and it would only be a matter of time before one of the captains took an interest in him.

With his friends by his side and the marks upon his body, the possibilities were seemingly endless. Seemingly…

A/N hachimaki traditional samurai headgear worn underneath their helmets, made to tell people that they've accepted death as a final release of the spirit. Renji's typically white, cloth headband, tied off to one side.


End file.
